If we live through this, she vowed, this is the first place I’m coming back to.

At that point, Robin came bounding up to join Nikolas and Sophie. He climbed up Sophie’s body and clung to her neck. She let him ride her back, drawing comfort from his presence.

They took the stairs two at a time until she stopped with a hitch. “Shift.”

While they waited, she drew a line across the stairway. This time Ashe and Thorne stopped to finish up, while the rest moved on.

Upstairs, they found the family private chambers, six rooms all told. A scattering of items remained behind, along with a few moth-eaten tapestries. There was another stairwell that led back down to the courtyard that held the privy chambers, fruit trees, and the well across the way.

Then there was the kitchen, the buttery, the pantry, a smoke room and, down below the kitchen, a larder, which Sophie learned was a place to keep things cool.

“Shift,” she said.

And again. “Shift.”

“Shift.”

Each time she drew a line, and she and Nikolas kept moving, while the others stayed behind in pairs to finish the job. They saw nothing out the windows that looked like it might be Lyonesse. All they saw were variations on the scenes around the house. From one window, they looked out at the courtyard in deep winter. Snow piled in great drifts across the open space.

There was an interior hall from the kitchens leading back to the great hall. Then, to the back of the courtyard, there were the servants’ quarters and what looked to be a small barracks, a room with rotting racks that Gawain said was an armory, and even two cells at the end of a corridor.

“There’s a shift nearby, I can feel it,” she murmured, turning around in confusion near the cells at the end of the corridor. She felt like Pac-Man, stuck in a corner with no yellow dots to eat. “How many have we found so far?”

“Eleven,” Nikolas said.

They had been combing the house for hours. She was tired, thirsty, and hungry, but nobody suggested they quit. The periodic quake that rose from the earth and shuddered through the house’s ancient bones drove them onward.

They had lost two of their pairs, Rhys and Cael, and Rowan and Gareth. God only knew when the four would catch up with them.

As she turned around again, clenching her hands in frustration, Nikolas dug into his pack and pulled out a bottle of water. He thrust it into her hands. “Take a minute. Drink.”

Accepting the need for at least a brief break, she moved down the hall a few yards, away from the others, while she tried to think. Robin jumped to the ground and ran through the rooms in the corridor. The puck appeared to be searching too.

Sophie dropped her pack and eased into a sitting position, with her back against the wall. Sticking her knees up, she propped her elbows on them and buried her head in her hands.

Nobody said anything, but she felt like such a failure. It was her fault they were all trapped inside the house. She shot off her big mouth and speculated on things that she didn’t know enough about, and because of her, all their lives were now in danger.

Well, and hers too, but by this point, she felt like she deserved whatever she got. She couldn’t even find the stupid shift nearby even though it felt massive, like all the other shifts put together.

Another low rumble began, shaking through the house. It vibrated through the stone. She felt it in her ass and through her ankles, coming up from below.

Coming up from below, in the earth, just like the massive shift.

Robin caught her attention. The monkey was loping in circles, inside one of the cells. As she stared at him, he slapped the floor with both hands.

Excitement lifted away the dread. She leaped to her feet. “I’ve got it! The shift is below us!”

Quick footsteps came up from behind. At first she thought it was Nikolas, but then hard hands like manacles circled her neck, choking her. Her attacker spun her around so that they faced the other men, clamping her back against his chest with a hand around her throat while out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach for the knife in his belt. He drew it and held the tip to her jugular.

They were all so much faster than she was. It happened so quickly she barely had time to grab hold of his forearm.

Several feet away, she caught a glimpse of the others—Gawain, Braden, Thorne, and Nikolas. That meant Ashe was the one who had taken her hostage.

The men lunged down the hall toward them. Nikolas’s expression turned savage.

“Back up,” Ashe barked. “Back up, or I’ll break her neck! I mean it, Nik—I’ll snap her like a twig. Back the fuck up!”

The men jerked to a halt.

“I’m going to murder you,” Nikolas whispered.

His eyes blazed, and his features seemed to… shift?

She blinked. He looked wrong somehow, monstrous, with talons instead of fingers. She had heard sometimes Wyr partially shifted when they were under extreme emotional stress. Was that what was happening?

“We’re going to walk to the front door, you and me,” Ashe growled in her ear. “And then we’re going to walk out of this godsforsaken place. I don’t have to hurt you if you cooperate and they keep their distance, understand? What happens to you is your choice.”

Oh sure, except for the knife to her throat, and by the way, what would happen to her once Ashe got to the front door? He couldn’t let her go and still hope to escape Nikolas, and she had a feeling Morgan would no longer be quite so friendly and nonthreatening if and when they came face-to-face again.

Which spell should she use, telekinesis or confusion? The tip of that knife pressing into her flesh was awfully pesky. Even if he got confused by the spell, he might still retain enough presence of mind to press it home.